Mindful leadership: developing service design in government

I wrote this article for a Master of Design Futures project, and a lot has changed in government since 2017. The project asked students to consider leadership in the context of our design practice, so I took inspiration from associations emerging from my (then active) yoga and design practice. This article proposes that teaching service design in government settings might benefit from a similar approach employed by yoga teachers, whereby designers might advance through incrementally levels of skill and reflective practice to master the art of mindful practice or ‘making shapes’. Writing this piece deepened my understanding of how yoga and design had become interrelated for me and highlighted the need for government to support service designers to progressively establish, stabilise and mature their craft practices.

You can read the article here…